First Look: Kabukibu!

Premise

Kurogo Kurusu decides to start a school club to share the FUN and EXCITING world of Kabuki with everyone!

Jel’s verdict: I’d Rather Watch Rakugo

I thought about being lazy and once again copying and pasting my stock review of these go-getter club shows, but I love you readers enough that I will make the effort to write something new about it… OK I don’t really have much new to say. Our hero has chosen his obscure hobby of choice, he tries to start a club, no one wants to join, but he is determined to ganbare his way through it. As usual, the obscure hobby of choice doesn’t really matter much, although I will say I find it much harder to “get” kabuki than say, making indie games or riding bicycles. With all due respect, whenever Kurogo would get fired and start spouting kabuki lines I’d really find it more annoying than anything.

Of course if you do want to watch one of these club comedies it seems like Kabukibu! is about as solid as any of them. I can at least give them credit for having the students react realistically when presented with the invitation to join a kabuki club, particularly our terrible rock singer friend who said most of what I was thinking. I’m sure that will all be put aside though as we conveniently already have enough descendants from kabuki families in one school to get a club together. I’ll give another bonus point for inviting a girl to join despite kabuki traditions and, well honestly, school anime club traditions that usually limit themselves to one gender per club. Other than, this is just another pleasant and harmless show, take it or leave it.

Artemis’ verdict: Yawn

If this were any other setting, I’d probably be all over Kabukibu. I’m by no means an expert on the topic, but I do genuinely think kabuki has an interesting history, and I’m supportive in general of shows that aren’t afraid to tackle subject matter different from the anime norm.

That said, Kabukibu bored me, because even with the slightly unusual focus, it somehow still managed to feel exactly like every other school club-centric anime ever made. The premise of one guy/girl and their friend forming some kind of school group, and then immediately having to hunt down and convince other people to join said group, has been done to death at this point, and also done far better. I didn’t particularly dislike the writing or the characters, but I also saw nothing at all to suggest that Kabukibu would bring anything to the table we’ve not all seen hundreds of times before. And not that it matters overmuch, but since the same thing goes for any of the technical points like music and art, I see little point in sticking around for more. Wake me when someone comes up with an anime about kabuki that isn’t mired in the same old conventions of Japanese high school.